Regarding Fields and Oceans, 1 of 1
by Andreax
Summary: Mulder challenges Scully after she rolled her eyes at him at the end of Triangle


Title: Regarding Fields and Oceans

Author: Andrea

Rating: PG-13 for some language and sexual references.

Category: Post-ep for Triangle, VRA, Mulder POV

Spoilers: The Field Where I Died (but please don't let that stop you), Demons and Triangle.

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully belong to Fox, David and Gillian. This piece is offered as an homage.

Notes: Thanks to Dan for beta reading and Tanya for her ongoing support. Please see author's notes at the end.

Washington, D.C.

November 23, 1998.

The morning after Skinner, Scully and the Gunmen visited me, I was given the all-clear and released from the hospital. The attending doctor said I wasn't fit to drive yet, so I called Scully. She agreed to pick me up. The ride back to my apartment was fairly quiet. Scully asked if I was feeling better. I told her I was. Scully explained that I'd spent two days in a Hamilton hospital before being flown back to D.C. I told her I remembered nothing of being in the hospital in Bermuda. We said nothing else.

In spite of the doctor thinking I was okay to go home, I was still felt wobbly, so Scully helped me up to my apartment. After getting me settled onto the couch, she turned to leave.

She was almost at the door before I called to her. "Before you rush off, can I ask you something?"

Though her back was still to me, I saw her shoulders slump before she turned around. She might not have wanted to talk about it, but I did. She turned back toward me, but remained silent. Crossing her arms, she waited for me to speak. It was classic Scully defensive posture; very interesting.

"Why don't you believe me?"

She sighed heavily. "Mulder, I don't think this is the best time to have this conversation. Why don't you wait until you're feeling better?"

"Do you think if you postpone this, I'll forget what I said?"

"No."

"Then what difference does it make when we talk about it. You already laughed off what I said. Don't I at least deserve to know why?" I was still on the couch and she was just inside the door, but it felt like we were miles apart.

I watched as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. That was her nervous tic. Why would she be nervous? I was the one who'd laid myself bare.

"I know you like to think that the truth will set you free, but sometimes the truth isn't always what you hope it will be," Scully said quietly.

"I'm not asking if you return my feelings. I just want to know why you dismissed what I said like it was insignificant."

At my words, her lips pursed, she tilted her head to one side and narrowed her eyes. I'd struck a nerve.

After taking a long slow breath, she nodded her head. "You really want to know?"

I bobbed my head.

"Okay," she said, jutting her chin out. "Two years ago you told me that during World War II, we lived in the Warsaw ghetto and I was your father. You also said that Melissa Ephesian was there and she was your soul mate; the father of your child. Now apparently I'm supposed to believe that wasn't true. During the war, I worked for the OSS and was trapped in time on the Queen Anne. And instead of everyone being together in Poland, we were all on that ship. Where was Melissa? Your soul mate? Did you forget about her? Or are you saying you no longer believe that regression? Which version am I supposed to believe? Because I'll tell you one truth, Mulder, if you still believe that Melissa Ephesian is your soul mate, I will not be what you settle for while you bide your time until you meet her again in your next life. I deserve better than that."

Sitting on my couch in stunned silence, I simply stared at her. I didn't know what to say. I hadn't thought about the Temple of the Seven Stars in a very long time. Apparently the same couldn't be said for Scully.

"Do you get it now, Mulder? Do you understand why I might not take your declarations of love to heart?" The bitterness in her voice sent a chill through me.

Like an idiot, I sat there motionless and mute.

"Why don't you think about it and get back to me?" She said tersely, turned on her heel and left my apartment.

I'd certainly have plenty of time to think. I wasn't due back at work for at least a week, assuming I got a clean bill of health. The only trouble was, I wasn't sure if any amount of contemplation would help. At the time, I'd completely believed that Melissa Ephesian was my soul mate. And I was certain what I'd witnessed on the Queen Anne was real. But Scully was right. Both things couldn't have occurred. How could I possibly determine which was true?

I was positive I'd be up all night ruminating, but I woke up the next morning, no further ahead. There was only one thing I was positive of. Scully did deserve better than to be second choice. I knew what I had to do. I also knew that I couldn't do it alone.

More than a week passed before I talked to Scully again; but not because I didn't want to. There were so many times I'd wanted to call, been on the verge of calling, had my thumb hovering over the number one on my phone, but I stopped myself. I wanted to have answers for her when we next spoke. The following Friday I was ready. I called her landline.

"Hello."

"It's me," I told her softly.

"Hi," she replied hesitantly. "How are you?"

"Good. I'm good. Much better, actually."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mulder. I was worried about you. I wanted to call you, but –"

"Didn't Frohike report as instructed?"

I heard her tsk and I could imagine her shaking her head. "I asked him not to say anything."

I chuckled. "He didn't. Did he tell you what I was doing?"

"No, he just said you were on the mend."

"He'd have made a good spy, that one." Frohike took great delight in every covert action we ever worked.

"What *were* you doing?" she asked very quietly.

"You were right. I had a lot of thinking to do."

The only sound on the other end of the line was her breathing. So, in her mind, the ball was still in my court.

"I'd like to come over, Scully, if that's all right with you."

"I'd like that," she said quickly and took a breath as if she was going to continue, but she said nothing else.

"I'll be there in half an hour."

After Scully let me in, she asked me to sit on the couch. She seemed a little surprised when I said I'd rather sit at the kitchen table, but didn't question my choice aloud. Once I'd declined every offer of a beverage she made, I took a deep breath and began.

"The first thing I did last Friday morning was call Karen Kosseff."

"Karen?" Scully's voice rose in alarm. "Why her?"

"Because you had good things to say about her so I trusted her opinion," I explained.

"But Mulder –" Scully's eyes were wide and she shook her head.

"Scully, let me talk. You had your say and then I did as you asked. Could you please just listen now?"

At my rebuke, she closed her mouth and lowered her eyes.

"I wanted her advice; the name of a therapist she trusted. My choices haven't worked out well for me. She surprised me by recommending her personal therapist. She warned me that he didn't pull any punches. He sounded perfect for me, like she had some kind of insight into what I might need."

Raising her eyes, Scully gave me a small smile.

"As a favor to Karen he gave me an appointment every day this week. He had to come in early just to squeeze me in, because he had no openings at all. I know now how fortunate I was," I said, not wanting to thing about where I would've been without Karen's help. "I started by telling him about what I'd told you, your initial response, my challenge and the resulting fallout. Then I told him about what happened in Tennessee and on the Queen Anne. That took the entire first appointment. He didn't write down anything I said or say a word. You must be rubbing off on me, Scully, because I must admit, I was skeptical that he was as good as Karen purported."

Sitting with her hands folded on the table, Scully gave me a nod, asking me to continue.

"On Tuesday we talked in detail about the various therapists I've seen over the years and the many times I'd been hypnotized and regressed. When I decided to seek professional help, it was because I wanted to be regressed again. I was confused. If what I'd seen when I was regressed in Chattanooga was true, why hadn't I thought about it since then?"

"And you thought being regressed -" Scully stopped herself and stared at the table.

"It's okay," I reached out to touch her hands. When she looked up at me, I forced a small smile, but it was difficult. The grief I saw in her eyes broke my heart. "Maybe it's because I'm a psychologist, but I think all of the truths about myself are locked inside my mind."

"I don't disagree, Mulder. But that doesn't mean being regressed will unlock those answers for you," she said gently; turning her hand over to hold mine loosely.

Nodding, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "That's what Gavin said. He actually said that in some cases, being hypnotized or regressed might be helpful, but not with mine. He figured that so many people had been digging around in my head, both literally and figuratively, that anything I came up with using either of those methods would be completely meaningless."

"So you no longer believe that regression?" Scully's eyes grew wide with surprise.

"Well," I began, but paused to chew my lip; hesitant to continue because I knew she wasn't going to like what I had to say. "At that point, no one had drilled any holes into my head. The incident in Providence was six months later."

"Oh," Scully said; her tone clipped. She sat back in her chair, drawing our hands apart.

"But Gavin didn't think that meant what I saw in my regression was genuine, Scully."

She nodded slowly. "But you did."

"I wasn't sure what to believe. If those weren't past lives, I needed to know what the hell it was."

Scully said nothing. She preferred to stare intently at her hands.

"So we spent Wednesday tearing apart what I'd seen and what I'd felt. Gavin didn't put much stock in the whole soul mate idea. He said from everything I told him, it sounded more like Melissa and I were destined *not* to be together. He also said if she was his soul mate, he'd be asking for a divorce."

Scully managed a little smile, but her face became serious quickly. "But you weren't convinced, were you?"

"I still didn't know what to think. I've put a lot of faith in regression over the years. I didn't want to dismiss it so easily. Gavin saw my hesitance, so he gave me some homework."

Scully raised her eyebrows in interest, but remained quiet.

"He told me to go home and fantasize about her."

Lowering her eyes again, Scully murmured my name and shook her head.

"Don't worry," I said with a chuckle. "I won't go into the gory details. Actually, there aren't any to go into. I couldn't. And I tried, believe me. The only time I got anywhere was when my mind wandered elsewhere. When I brought it back, things, well, diminished."

Scully still wouldn't look at me, but I could see that her cheeks had grown pink.

"Yesterday, when I reported what had happened, Gavin said it was interesting, but wanted to move on and talk about what happened on the Queen Anne. Then he gave me more homework. And Scully, let me tell you, I came back with a vastly different report this morning. Our session today was spent discussing why."

I stopped talking and waited for her to look at me. When she lifted her eyes, I could tell she wasn't completely convinced.

"You want to know what we decided?"

She nodded.

"Well, more accurately, what I decided. Fucking psychologists, they never tell you what they're thinking. They make you do all the work."

Scully smiled at my joke. It was the first time I'd seen that heart-stopping smile in over a week. I couldn't help but return it, gleefully.

"In short, I came to the conclusion that if she truly was my soul mate, I should've been aroused. But in fact, I was the opposite of turned on. Thinking about any naked woman will usually have an effect on me, well, not any woman - you know what I mean. But when I thought about her, Scully, my dick practically shrivelled. Every time anything started to happen, it was because my mind had drifted to you."

I'd thought when I confessed all of this to Scully, she'd finally believe me. But no, I could tell by her eyes she had more questions.

"Then why did you believe it so easily two years ago? What was that?"

"It was a lot of things, Scully. It started with finding the bunker. I was convinced that the only reason I could've known about it was if I'd been there in a past life," I explained, hoping it wouldn't set us back again.

"And you don't believe that anymore?"

"No, I do - parts of it, at least."

"Why only some parts now? What changed?" she asked, sounding almost angry.

"It's easy to believe a beautiful lie, Scully, you know that. And when lies are tangled up in the truth, it becomes even harder to separate fact from fiction. I think you were right about how she affected me. She was very convincing. The other factor was all me. I want to believe. I always do. It's my fatal flaw. But I don't think Melissa Ephesian exploited it knowingly. And that willingness to believe coupled with her disease…" I let my voice trail off.

"But the details you had, Mulder, the names," she shook her head.

"I'm not saying I wasn't Sullivan Biddle. Maybe that's how I knew about the bunker, or maybe it just made sense that a farm of that age would have one. And I'm not saying that I didn't know Sarah Kavanaugh in that life, but that doesn't mean our souls were tied together forever."

"Then what about the Warsaw ghetto? I couldn't have been your father then and on the Queen Anne. That would be a time paradox."

"That's the part I no longer believe; that souls are bound together in time. It makes no sense. Twice you and I are brothers-in-arms and once you're my father? Those are vastly different connections. And maybe that was me in Warsaw, it just wasn't you and it wasn't Melissa Ephesian. If all of our souls are tied so closely, where were my parents? Where were your parents? And what was my connection to Melissa Ephesian? She happened to be part of a case I was assigned to outside of my normal avenues of investigation? Twice we live in exactly the same place but not in this life? So what happened? How did these souls that are supposed to be bound so closely end up so far apart?" The more I talked the more ludicrous the whole scenario seemed.

Scully nodded. "And the Queen Anne?"

"Oh, Scully, that was real. You were there. I wasn't. Not in 1939. I was there out of time. I know you don't believe it, but I know in your last life, you were a beautiful OSS agent," I told her as earnestly as I knew how.

"So what happened to her then, your beautiful agent? Because if she was in her thirties in 1939, she could've easily still been alive when I was born. My understanding is that reincarnation doesn't work that way. How could our soul have transmigrated if I was still alive in my former life?"

"No, she never left 1939 and that's when she died," I told her sadly. "And if I hadn't gotten off that ship, I would've died too."

"You did almost die, Mulder. In fact, I still don't understand why you didn't." Her eyes welled up as she spoke.

"All I know is I didn't die. You're here. I'm here. And I don't want to waste any more time. I need you to believe now, Scully. Do you? Do you believe that I love you?"

She nodded, making a tear spill out and run down her cheek.

"I guess that just leaves one question," I said, reaching for her hand.

"What's that?" She asked with a sniff.

"Do you love me?"

She choked out a laugh. "Jesus Christ, Mulder. Do you think I would've put either one of us through this if I didn't love you?"

"I hoped not," I said with a sigh. "Will you do one more thing for me?"

Her eyes sparkled at me. "What?"

"Will you let me test a hypothesis?"

"What hypothesis?" Her forehead furrowed.

Pushing my chair back, I stood up and walked around the table to her. Taking my proffered hand, she let me pull her to her feet.

"What hypothesis, Mulder?" she repeated as I pulled her body to mine.

"Can I test first and explain later?" I asked as I slid my hand into her hair.

"Okay," she agreed breathily as her eyes met mine.

She was certainly much friendlier than 1939 Scully. As I began to dip my head, her lips parted in anticipation. When our mouths met, she seemed to grow heavier against me. In 1939, I struggled to keep Scully in the kiss. In 1998, it wasn't an issue. She opened her mouth to me and let me experiment more than long enough to gather all the evidence I required.

When we finally parted, Scully laid her head against my chest, which was still heaving, as was hers.

"So?" She looked up at me after a minute.

"Well, my hypothesis was that more than just souls transmigrate. 1939 Scully was a really good kisser, but you just blew her out of the water."

"So another theory of yours I managed to disprove?" she said with a chuckle.

"Which of my theories of mine have you disproven?" I asked her wryly.

"Hey," she protested, dropping her hand to swat my ass.

I just laughed. "And you may be a better lover, but she was a much better fighter."

End

Author's note: I realized as I attempted to watch 'The Field Where I Died' that canon contradicted itself when it came to 'Triangle'. This was my attempt to resolve it.


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